The first edition of the World Bach-Fest, which took place last week weekend in Florence, Italy, was supposed to be a momentous occasion. Organizers believed it was the first time that a classical music festival with international scope was organized, and an audience invited, through Facebook.
The festival took place at three storied venues in the city. But when a contingent of harpsichord players arrived, they discovered a single instrument that was, for all intents and purposes, unplayable.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
When they asked for a technician, they were told none was available and that they should play on a modern piano instead.
Italian period keyboard player Luca Oberti demonstrates:
On his blog, Oberti describes his outrage in detail. His biggest beef is that the Bach festival couldn’t have cared less about the keyboard instrument that all of Bach’s non-organ works were written for.
If you can read Italian, you’ll find his eloquent post here.
What Oberti doesn’t go into detail on is how a harpsichordist can’t just jump over to a modern piano, no matter how well prepared the music.
On a harpsichord, a note is plucked in a way immune to the player’s touch on the small, ultra-light keys. Glenn Gould had his Steinway grand specially modified to try and approximate — not duplicate — the touch of a harpsichord, a job that would take even the most skilled of piano technicians at least a full day to accomplish.
Anyway, the real lesson here is that all festivals are not created equal — especially when the organizers know more about social media than about the instruments their star musicians are going to use.
(Thanks to Mauro Bertoli for pointing me to this story.)
Here is Oberti in happier circumstances, playing some music by François Couperin in Bankok last September:
Let’s contrast this with French Bach expert Albert Lévêque (1900-1970), a generation older than Gould, playing Couperin in the pre-period-performance era on a modern piano:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
